Free The Truth about My Success by Dyan Sheldon Page B

it smells like a traffic jam; up here, it smells like an expensive perfume counter.
    Harriet jumps from the car and Oona follows. But with less enthusiasm.
    “You have a nice day, miss!” calls the cabbie.
    “You, too.” She stands with her back to the house, watching the cab disappear. What has she done? Not for the first time since she called Jack Silk (and not for the last time, either), Oona wishes that she hadn’t. She should have stayed in the cab and returned home. Contract or no contract, what could they do to her? Sue her? For what? A three-year-old cell phone and a rescue dog?
    But Oona, as we know, is a practical person. She did call Jack Silk, and she didn’t stay in the cab.
    “Come on, Harriet.” Oona climbs the steps and rings the bell.
    The door is opened by a short, dark-haired woman with a dish towel in her hand and the smile of someone waiting to be attacked. She glances from Oona to Harriet to the empty drive behind them “Yes?”
    “I’m Oona,” says Oona. “Oona Ginness. Jack Silk sent me.”
    “Of course. Of course.” Maria knows about Jack Silk’s scheme – or as much as he felt it was necessary to tell her. If she’d been asked her opinion – which, of course, she wasn’t – she would have said that it, like so much about the Minnicks and the way they live, is ridiculous. Seeing Oona doesn’t make her change her mind. She eyes Harriet in a dubious way. “And that is your little dog?”
    “Her name’s Harriet,” says Oona. “Jack Silk said I could bring her. He said the Minnicks love animals.”
    The only animals the Minnicks love are ones you eat.
    Maria shrugs. “If Mister Jack says bring her, then of course you bring her.” Now it’s Oona’s backpack that’s receiving the dubious look. “Is that all you have?”
    “Uh huh. Jack Silk said not to bring any clothes or anything.” All she packed was underwear, a few old photographs, a comb, a brush, her cat slippers, a toothbrush and a sock doll her mother made for her when she was a baby. “You know, so I can get into being Paloma.”
    Maria, who knows what lies in store for Oona in the teen star’s bedroom, might think Jack Silk should have told her to bring a shovel, but all she says is, “Of course. Of course. Come in, come in.” She flutters backwards. “Leave your bag here. Mrs Minnick waits for you.”
    Mrs Minnick waits for her in the breakfast nook. Sunlight floods through a wall of windows, making everything shine and the woman at the round table with her jewellery and her tan and her dark blonde hair look as though she’s dusted in gold. A trade paper, an empty coffee cup and a cell phone (gold) are laid out in front of her. Although she’s sitting perfectly still, her eyes on an article about musicals, she gives the impression that she’s chain-smoking cigarettes and tapping her fingers in a restless, impatient way. Oona stops dead in the doorway. She has an urge to run, or at least walk backwards quickly. Leone Minnick often has this effect on people, but in Oona’s case it’s because it never occurred to her that Paloma’s mother might be the woman who was in Ferlinghetti’s with Jack Silk. Lady Make-sure-the-cup’s-clean. The snob with less charm than snot. Apparently Jack Silk doesn’t think of everything, after all. He certainly forgot to mention this.
    “You must be Oola!” Leone cries as if she’s never seen Oona before. “I’m Leone Minnick!” As if she might be someone else. “I was so afraid I was going to miss you. I don’t have too much time. Wouldn’t you know that today, of all days, I have a very important lunch?”
    Moving like a robot in need of oil, Oona manages to follow Maria into the room. “Actually, it’s Oona.”
    Leone’s smile deepens, so that it could almost be described as shallow. “Actually, it’s Paloma.”
    “Yeah, right, Paloma,” says Oona. “And we did kind of meet.”
    But listening isn’t one of Leone’s greatest skills. Especially not